Method and apparatus for editing, filtering, ranking and approving content

ABSTRACT

The system provides a method and apparatus for editing, filtering, ranking and approving content. In one embodiment, the system provides a browsing environment for children that routes all internet requests through a central server. A request to a blocked website is automatically forwarded to one of a plurality of editors who can then access the site and determine on a page or site basis as to whether the request is suitable for the browsing environment. The system includes a workflow management system that determines which of the plurality of editors will be assigned a link to review. Approved content is categorized by the age and gender of the users of the content. The approved content is also categorized as a resource or reference to assist in accomplishing homework assignments. Parents can receive updates and can manage the content remotely.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No.12/395,805, filed Feb. 27, 2009, the entire content of which isincorporated herein by reference. Also this application claims thebenefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/033,288, filed Mar. 3,2008, which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE SYSTEM

1. Field of the Invention

The invention relates to reviewing content such as web sites todetermine its suitability for a particular consumer and for editing,filtering, ranking and approving the content in whole or in part.

2. Background of the Invention

The ability to access information via networks such as the Internet hasbecome an accepted part of everyday life. The ability to interact withdigital knowledge sources is of such fundamental importance that parentsand schools have encouraged computer literacy in children of younger andyounger age. Accordingly, young children have regular and ongoing accessto computers and in a typical home or school, to information networkssuch as the Internet.

This increased computer and Internet use by children creates a challengefor parents, who may wish to monitor or filter the information to whicha child has access. Moreover, a parent may determine that a child shouldspend more time using a personal computing device for one thing (such asdoing homework) and less time using it for other things (such as playinggames). Unfortunately, a modern personal computing device typically doesnot provide a parent with the controls that would allow the parent todefine a policy relating to how a child may use the personal computingdevice.

There have been some attempts to provide a children safe computing andbrowsing environment. In some cases, filtering software is provided thatenables a parent to block certain web sites from access without apassword. In theory, when the parent is surfing the web, the parent candisable the feature or supply the required password when blocked contentis desired. The system may also include an ability to search for certainwords and phrases and block websites that contain those phrases. Thechild is prevented from defeating the system due to lack of knowledge ofthe password.

A disadvantage of such systems is the inability to intelligently filtermaterial. The banned websites are typically over or under-inclusive. Achild may have access to potentially harmful material or may be deniedaccess to safe and appropriate material. It also places a burden on theparents to maintain the filters and to modify them appropriately. Forexample, if the child is attempting to access a website that is blocked,the child needs the parent's assistance to provide permission forbrowsing that website.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE SYSTEM

The system provides a method and apparatus for editing, filtering,ranking and approving content. In one embodiment, the system provides abrowsing environment for children that routes all internet requeststhrough a central server. The server checks the URL of the requestagainst a database of approved sites. If there is a match, the systempermits access to the site. If there is no match, the website access isblocked and the child is notified. In one embodiment, the system canalso notify the parents or update a history report each time anon-approved website is requested. The request to a blocked website isautomatically forwarded to one of a plurality of editors who can thenaccess the site and determine on a page or site basis as to whether therequest is suitable for the browsing environment. The system includes aworkflow management system that determines which of the plurality ofeditors will be assigned a link to review. Approved content iscategorized by the age and gender of the users of the content. Theapproved content is also categorized as a resource or reference toassist in accomplishing homework assignments.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an example computer system in an embodimentof the system.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an example embodiment of a managed networkexperience.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating the handling of a content requestin an embodiment of the system.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of one embodiment of the editing/approvalprocess of the system.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment of the routing of awork order to a particular editor to optimize request review.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE SYSTEM

The present system provides a method and apparatus for managing,editing, ranking, filtering, and categorizing content on a network. Inthe following description, the system is described in connection with anembodiment that manages content to be accessed by children on a network.However, the system is not limited to this embodiment and hasapplication to any situation where content is desired to be managed fora specific audience. The system may be implemented in a child-orientedcomputer such as is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/037,082 entitled “Child-Oriented Computer System” filed on Feb. 25,2008 and incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Example Embodiment

The system contemplates a user (in one embodiment a child) accessing anetwork using a computing facility of some type. Referring to FIG. 1, insome embodiments, a computing facility 100 may comprise a commercial,off-the-shelf (COTS) computing facility, such as and without limitationa personal computer (PC), a cell phone, a Sony PSP2, and the like. TheCOTS computing facility may run an operating system such as Linux or avariant thereof, a Microsoft Windows-brand operating system, Mac OS X,and so forth. In the preferred embodiment, the computing facility 100may comprise a COTS PC.

In embodiments, the computing facility 100 according to the principlesof the present invention may comprise the following elements: a display102; a keyboard 104; a mouse 108; a special-purpose button 110; amicrophone 112; a optical disc facility 114; a local storage facility118; a network facility 120; a camera 128; a touch screen 130; a speaker132; and so forth. The computing facility may be operatively coupled toa network 122, such as the Internet. The network 122 may, in turn, beoperatively coupled to an external facility 124, which is described indetail hereinafter in reference to other figures.

In embodiments, the internal components of the computing facility 100may include a primary motherboard. The motherboard may include a centralprocessing unit (CPU); RAM memory (which may be the local storagefacility 118), such as a RIMM chip, SRAM, DRAM, a BIOS chip; a PCI slot;an Accelerated Graphics Port; a ZIF socket; a disk controller, which maybe directed at controlling a hard drive or floppy drive; an additionalchipset; an expansion slot; a parallel port; a PS/2 port; a serial port;an ATX power connector; a fan; a battery; and so forth. The motherboardmay be connected to an external power supply in order to receive powerfrom a standard wall electrical outlet. Additional internal componentsmay include a media drive (of which the optical disc facility 114 may becomprised) and/or ports, such as and without limitation a compact discplayer/recorder, a digital video disc player/recorder, removable diskdrives (e.g. a USB jump drive, memory card or the like). The internalcomponents may connect with multimedia components, such as an audiospeaker and/or the display 102 (which may comprise an LCD, plasma, CRT,LED, holographic, or other monitor or display device).

Example Software Embodiment

In one embodiment the system uses a custom browser to provide theinterface between the user and the Internet. The browser controls allrequests and replies so that the user has a layer of protection betweenhimself and the Internet. FIG. 2 illustrates an example implementationof a software embodiment of the child-oriented computing system. In thisembodiment, the child-oriented computing system is provided by a pieceof software downloaded from a management unit to a computing devicewherein one or more children use the downloaded software when installedto browse content. In particular, the system may include a computer 201that is used by the children to access the Internet. (The computer 201may be any suitable computing device that is capable of accessing theInternet and may be the example embodiment described in FIG. 1). Atypical browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, etc.) isreplaced with a custom browser 202 that includes browser functions suchas searching, multi-media presentation, favourite lists, browsing,chatting, emailing, social networking functions, and the like and whoserequests and replies are directed to and from the Internet 204 via amanaging server 203. Once installed on the computing device 201, thebrowser application 202 controls the browsing and web surfing activitiesof each child that uses the computing device and logs the activities ofeach child so that the activities can be reviewed by a parent asdescribed in more detail below. In another embodiment, the system isimplemented as an add on to a browser, such as for a Firefox browser. Inthis embodiment, the system functionality is added to an existingbrowser instead of replacing the browser. This approach can be extendedto Linux systems.

The system may further comprise a management server 203 such as one ormore server computers in an exemplary embodiment that can be accessed bythe computing device over a network, such as the Internet or othernetwork. The computing device 201 may establish a session using thecustom browser 202 and then interact with the management server 203 inorder to at least: 1) update the browser application; 2) change parentalsettings; 3) review and approve particular web pages and/or categoriesof content; 4) download web pages containing the browsing activities andselected content for a particular child; 5) download content categorieswhen the child is browsing using the browser application; and/or 6)provide product recommendations to a parent based on a child's browsingactivities. The computing device 201 and management server 203 may alsointeract to perform other functions and operations as described below inmore detail.

The management server 203 may further comprise its own web server 205that serves web pages to the computing device 201 or downloads contentto the browser application 202 among other functions. The managementserver 203 may also include a child-oriented content manager application206 that manages one or more pieces of content that may be browsed bythe browser application, and a database management unit 207 that managesthe data in a data store 208 such as a database system. The data store208 may store the data associated with the system such as the user data(child and parent data), content data, category data, web page contentand the like. Data store 208 may also store a list of approved URL's,web pages, web sites, or other content that may be accessed by a uservia the network.

Approved Content

The system maintains a database of approved content that can include webpages, web sites, video, audio, photographs, graphic images, and otherretrievable content. In one embodiment, the database is defined bylevels (e.g. Level 1 and Level 2). Level 1 is a review of individualmedia items, i.e. review of a web page, a video, a photo, or any otherindividual media item. Level 2 review is a review of a collection ofmedia items, i.e. i. reviewing search results and reordering or addingitems to the search results. (This is what we call categorization) orii. reviewing a web domain, evaluating all the pages belonging to adomain, such as nick.com and determining whether every page in thedomain should be approved or rejected. Level 2 is generated byincorporating websites from child friendly content sources (e.g. DMOZ,kids directories, Nickelodeon, Disney, etc.). Next, a category list wasdefined of the categories that are most relevant for children(entertainment, education, etc.). The category list was then populatedwith the collected content. In one embodiment, the categories wereeither populated with what was considered the best content or werepopulated with a ranking, ordering, or weight for each content source.In one embodiment, an editor selects a category (Zebra for example) andthe system algorithmically finds the websites believed to be related tothe category prioritizes the relevancy of such content based on thesearch algorithm. At the same time, the system fetches photos and othermedia content from the creative commons library at FlickR that weretagged with this category and pull videos from sites such as YouTubethat met this category key word. The editor would then review the listof websites, photos and videos and pick the most relevant ones topopulate a top level of results (e.g. 48 websites, 18 videos and 18photos). The editor will also rank or order the content so that the mostrelevant appear in the top positions of a search for that category. Thesystem may perform spidering in the same manner as current searchengines.

The system then looks at the individual pages, sites, videos, soundfiles, photos, images, etc. and approves them on a one-by-one basis.This is the Level 1 category. This is for the content that was notconsidered to be the top level in the Level 2 exercise above. At thisstage, the system may also assign category tags to the content or mayrely on the Level 2 categorization.

Initially a database of approved content is assembled.

i. from spidering and feeding the results of the spidering to editorsfor review (i.e. Level 1 review)

ii. from editors searching using commercial search engine or web sitesearch capabilities for individual sites and adding individual items tothe database of content

iii. from editors learning of other interesting online media items (fromword of mouth, TV, magazines, newspapers, etc.) and adding themindividually to the database of content

iv. When kids encounter pages through the KidZui browser that have notbeen reviewed they are sent to editors for review.

v. The system periodically re-spiders web sites and tries to determineif they have changed sufficiently to require a re-review by editors. Ifit determines that a re-review is required, the webpage is placed in theeditorial queue for review

vi. The client reports problems playing videos that do not get played tothe back-end server system and those videos get placed in the editorialqueue

vii. The client reports pages that do not get loaded, i.e. 404s, 500setc., and those pages are also placed in the editorial queue

Category lists are defined

i. editors examine popular search terms and create categories based onthem. These are used in search auto-completion

ii. editors examine the search results for categories and if they deemthem not sufficiently strong, they adjust order of results and thesearch for additional content to add to the database of approved contentto improve the search results

iii. The system examines popular categories and search terms andregularly spiders content from those sources

Another Level 1 category is blocked content that is described below.

System Operation

In one embodiment, once the system is in operation, Level 1 review getspriority over Level 2 review. Part of the Level 1 review processincludes the review of “blocked pages”. The term blocked pages hererefers to any blocked request, including pages, sites, media files, etc.Within Level 1, a blocked page will get higher review priority overother L1 content so it is reviewed in a timely manner. There are anumber of ways in which a blocked page can arise.

For example, a page of a domain is approved but the rest of the domainwasn't approved. If a child clicked on a non-approved link of thatdomain, the request goes to the top of the Level 1 review. Another way ablocked page arises is when a child clicks on a link on an approved pagethat goes to a domain that has never been reviewed or not been approved.The page is blocked and sent for review.

In the blocked page review process, the system looks at ageclassification of the content as well as whether the flagged contentmeets any of our “hot topic” flags. In one embodiment, the systemdefines a plurality of flags (e.g. 15-20 flags such as athleticviolence, artistic nudity, cartoon violence, news, legal drugs, etc.)that can be used as filters by a parent.

FIG. 3 illustrates a typical transaction that occurs when a useraccesses the internet using the custom browser 202. At step 301 the userrequests content (e.g. a web site or web page) and transmits the requestfrom the user's computer 201. At step 302 the request is received by themanagement server 203. At step 303 the management server 203 checks therequested URL against a list of approved URL's in the data store 208. Atdecision block 304 it is determined if the URL is approved.

If the URL is not approved at step 304, the system notifies the user atstep 305 that the URL is not approved. The system then initiates anediting and review operation at step 306. If the URL is approved at step304 (meaning that there is a match with a URL on an approved list) thenthe management server 203 sends a request to the Internet 204 at step307. At step 308 the management server 203 receives the requestedcontent via internet 204. At step 309 the management server 203 respondsto the user request with the requested content and transmits the contentto the user through custom browser 202.

Editing Process

When a user requests content (e.g. web page URL) that has not beenapproved, the system initiates an editing and approval process asdescribed in step 306 of FIG. 3. The system contemplates a plurality ofhuman editors in combination with automated filtering to optimize thereview process. Unapproved content in many cases merely the firstinstance of requesting otherwise safe content. One goal is to optimizethe approval of such safe web pages so that in some cases, the user canbe notified of the approval of that web page during the same session inwhich the user requested the page. Although this is not always possible,it can enhance the browsing experience.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of one embodiment of the editing/approvalprocess of the system. At step 401 an unapproved web page has beenrequested. At step 402 the web page is compared to a list of previouslyunapproved web pages or domains. Some pages and domains may have alreadybeen determined to be unsafe for the target audience and need not bereviewed by a human. For example, it may be that certain adult,gambling, violent, etc. domains are never suitable for use in thesystem. At decision block 403 it is determined if the request is on abanned list. If so, the request is denied at step 404. At step 405 amessage is sent to the user informing them of the denied request. Insome circumstances, parents may have requested notification or reportingof every banned page requested by their children. If so, at step 406 theparents are notified by their method of choice (email, instant message,voice mail, text, etc.).

If the request is not currently on a banned list at decision block 403,a routing operation is performed at step 407 to select a human editor toreceive a work order to review the request. At step 408 the requestedcontent is passed through a parser and filter to determine if itcontains any key words that would likely lead to a banning of therequest. All found keywords are forwarded to the selected editor alongwith the request itself at step 409.

At step 410 the editor receives the work order, key words, and requestand begins the review process. At step 411 the editor reviews the keyword list. The editor may disapprove of the request based solely on thekey word list depending on the contents of the list. In some cases,certain key words may be permissible in certain contexts and notpermissible in others, so the editor may use judgement in determiningwhether to approve the site. In one embodiment, the key word list of apage is subjected to a Bayesian analysis and predictive indicator with arecommendation for approval or rejection. The actual decision of theeditor is combined with the predicted recommendation to fine tune thepredictive process so that the two techniques tend to converge.

The Bayesian analysis and prediction is always used in parallel to thehuman process and may be used as a way of quality control of theeditors. This comparison can also be used to measure performance of theeditors.

If the keyword list is not such as to automatically exclude the page,the editor then reviews the requested page at step 412 to determinewhether it can approved. At decision block 413 it is determined if theeditor has approved the page. If so, the page is approved at step 414.At step 415 the page is added to the approved list in the managementserver 203. At step 416 the user (and optionally parents) are notifiedthat the page is now available.

If the editor has not approved the page at decision block 413, theeditor tags the page unapproved at step 417. At step 418 the site isadded to the disapproved list and at step 419 the user and optionallythe parents are notified that the page is disapproved.

In one embodiment of the system, the editor has the option of approvingthe requested page only, or of approving the entire site from which thepage is sourced. Similarly, the editor can disapprove at a page level ora site level as appropriate.

Editor Work Order Routing

The system maintains a roster of multiple editors in multiple time zonesso that some number of editors are available throughout the day andnight to handle the review of questionable requests. FIG. 5 is a flowdiagram illustrating one embodiment of the routing of a work order to aparticular editor to optimize request review. At step 501 the systemreceives a request for a web page that needs to be reviewed. At step 502the system determines the available editors. This may be open loop basedon a schedule or a closed loop based on editors signing in or otherwiseindicating that they are available for reviewing content.

In one embodiment, there is an initial sorting of incoming pages to bereviewed and a sorting of which editors are assigned a page to review.The level one queue includes pages that come from a user request,referred to as “blocked pages”. The system also contemplates webcrawlers and spiders searching out content for review and approval(spider page). At step 503 the incoming pages are sorted into blocked,spider page, broken (if the link is not working), and skipped. A skippedpage is one that an editor elected to not address when presented. In thesystem, blocked pages are given highest priority because a user isactively interested in going to that page. Skipped pages are next,followed by spider pages and then broken links.

The blocked pages are assigned to an editor at step 504 based on acombination of the size of an editors queue, performance, and by a roundrobin page assignment. If an editor has fewer pending requests thananother editor, then the low queue editor will be assigned the nextblocked page. In another embodiment, continuous performance metrics aremaintained and the blocked page is assigned to the editor most likely tofinish the page first. This can mean that an editor with a large queuebut fast performance time might be assigned a blocked page over aneditor with a smaller queue but longer performance times. Theperformance analysis takes into account nearly real-time performancemetrics to assign the blocked page.

In one embodiment, one or more editors are assigned automatically toreview skipped pages. The automatic assignment can be based on a numberof factors. For example, it is possible for a page to be blocked eventhough it comes from an approved site. The popularity of all sites isranked continuously and the blocked pages from approved sites can begiven priority based on the popularity of the approved site. Thoseblocked pages will rise to the top of the queue for review by theeditors.

The system also could prioritize blocked pages based not on popularity,but based on the rating of sites by the users. In one embodiment, theusers can give a rating (e.g. a multi-scale rating system such as ratingfrom one to ten) to a site and a blocked page from a higher ranked sitewill have higher editor assignment priority over a blocked page from alower ranked site.

In another embodiment the popularity is tiered with rankings based onage and gender bands. For example, the most popular or highest rankingsites for the band including seven and eight year girls may be differentthan the highest ranking sites for eleven and twelve year old girls.Based on the age/gender band of the user who requests the blocked page,the appropriate ranking hierarchy is used.

At step 505 the editor can make one of four decisions about a page underreview. The editor can mark the page approved, rejected, broken, orskipped. The editor marks the page with a decision and based on thatdecision, users and parents are notified and databases are updatedaccordingly.

Blocked pages are placed into a plurality of queues including a level 1queue or a level 2 queue. The level 1 queue is populated by all blockedpage requests but is continuously sorted and reordered based on some ofthe prioritizing criteria described above. (It should be noted thatparents may be able set stricter standards of review for their childrenthan the default permissions of the overall system).

Domain Review

As noted above, in addition to reviewing pages, the editors can reviewentire domains. Domains can have one of four states in one embodiment ofthe system. These states are 1) approved, 2) rejected, 3) auto approve,and 4) manual approve. Approved means that the domain has been approved.Rejected means the domain has been rejected and each page from thatdomain is automatically rejected (Except individual pages that havepreviously been approved or are approved in a Level 1 review).Auto-approve means that any new page from the domain is automaticallyapproved without review. This means that when a child clicks on a pagefrom an auto-approved site, the page is viewable by the child but thepage is still sent for review. Manual approve means that even though thedomain is approved, each new page from the domain must be looked atmanually before being approved. It is possible for some pages of adomain to approved and some to be rejected under the manual approvecategory.

It is possible for the status of domains to change over time fromauto-approve to manual approve, and back again. In one embodiment, theworkflow of domain review is based on user popularity of the domainunder review. Statistics are kept of all users and domain visits, sothat a realistic ranking of domain popularity is possible. Thispopularity can be based on number of visits, number of unique visits,length of time spent per user, or any combination of such metrics. Aftersorting by popularity, the domains are assigned to editors based on thedomain state with manual approve domains having priority overauto-approve domains. Within each category, blocked requests havepriority over spider requests.

Editors can approve any pages they encounter when reviewing blockedpages or during domain review. They do not need to wait for a specificrequest from the system spider or from a blocked page request.

Categorizing of Content

In addition to approving or rejecting web pages, the system alsoprovides for ranking and categorizing of approved content. When aneditor approves a page, the editor also can indicate the presence orabsence of a plurality of categories, recommended age ranges, genderrecommendations, and other categories. In one embodiment, the systemseeks to identify content that is suitable for all children within acertain age range, say, for example, ages 3-11. However, although anychild can access any content that has been approved, the systemcontemplates offering and ranking content based on age within thesystem.

In one embodiment, the system performs correlation and text analysisthat reviews any text on a page to determine the reading comprehensionlevel of the text. Based on that result, a recommended age range isassociated with the page and stored in the management server databaseand/or added to metadata associated with the page. When a user performsa search request using the custom browser, the results are presented sothat the most relevant results that are at or near the age level of thesearcher are presented first. Pages are also assigned to age rangesbased on the popularity ranking of each page by the respective ageranges. Search results may be presented in order of relevance to usersfollowing the editorial selections if there are any, with the exceptionthat some sites may be boosted in the order based on user popularity.

In another embodiment, certain topics that are approved for the systemmay be limited within the system to certain age groups. The system alsolooks to the ability to navigate the content with clicks and graphicsversus the need to read linking information as a consideration forassigning an age range to the content. The amount of text versusgraphics on a page is another metric that is used to assign age rangesto web pages. Usually, the greater the amount of graphics to text, thelower the age range assignment.

Other attributes can be associated with the content or page. The pageitself may include metadata that can be parsed by the system and used tocategorize the content appropriately. For example, the page may beclassified as related to a particular kind of animal, and/or related tosubjects such as math, science, history, etc. Each attribute can beindicated by simple presence absence in one embodiment. In anotherembodiment, the system may assign a weighted score to each attributebased on meta data associated with the page or by a manual review andranking of the content by and editor.

The system can also assign attributes and characteristics based onpopularity of the page by other users in the system. The system hasdemographic information about all the users of the system. For example,if a particular page is most popular among 7-8 year old boys, then theattributes of that page will be such as to reflect that tendency.

The system can also associate characteristics to pages based onindividual user preferences. A histogram of user activity is maintainedfor each user. For each site or page visited by the user, the systemtracks all attributes and characteristics associated with the page andpopulates the user's histogram accordingly. When that user does asearch, search results can be ranked based on the user's own history,then by age group, and then by other characteristics as appropriate.

Homework Assistance

It is anticipated that one use for the child oriented browser of thesystem is to provide a method for children to access network informationto assist in helping with school assignments or other learningassignments. Of course a child can find information related to anassignment just be a general search of data. However, the systemcontemplates the characterizing of content in a way that would moreclearly and directly aid in homework assignments.

In one embodiment, the system includes assigning a characteristic orattribute that identifies a grade level and subject for which a page orother content would be helpful.

In one embodiment, the user can set a filter on a search engine in thecustom browser called “homework helper” that will ignore certain relatedcategories that would normally appear in the search. The filter willlimit the search to the pages from the highest scoring category for thatsearch request assuming that the high scoring category is the mostuseful for the search.

In another embodiment, homework search mode uses known information (ageband, expected grade level) of the searcher to fine tune the search toresults most related to that category. The user may also be askedquestions related to the type of class for which help is being requested(e.g. math, science, history, etc) and the system takes advantage ofcharacteristics associated with pages to find the most useful. Thesystem can also take advantage of prior user feedback on the helpfulnessof pages to homework assignments to rank and sort search results forhomework assistance. That feedback is also sorted by age and gender aswell as appropriate.

Because the system can tag each page with characteristics andstatistical data, the usefulness of pages in assisting with classassignments can be gauged and used appropriately.

Thus, a method and apparatus for editing, ranking, filtering, andapproving content has been described.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of performing a review process of arequest for content by a user comprising: identifying a domainassociated with the request; approving the request when the domain is anapproved domain; rejecting the request when the domain is a rejecteddomain; comparing the request to a database of banned requests when thedomain is not an approved or rejected domain; denying the request whenthe request is found in the database of banned requests; notifying theuser of the denial of the request; parsing the content of the request toidentify keywords when the request is not found in the database ofbanned requests; comparing the keywords to a dictionary of banned terms;denying the request when a threshold number of keywords are found in thedictionary of banned terms and assigning the request to one of aplurality of editors when the threshold number of keywords are not foundin the dictionary of banned terms.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein thestep of assigning the request to one of the plurality of editors isbased on characteristics associated with the request.
 3. The method ofclaim 1 wherein a characteristic of the request is the source of therequest.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein a characteristic of therequest is the popularity of a provider of the content of the request.